New strategy update.

Some input from a friend of mine finally gave me the push to get into options spread trading.  The plan is to exercise my optionsXpress virtual trading account for the next 4 months to get the hang of the various spread trading strategies, and get a sample of what I can expect.  If I’m doing good, then I’ll risk 20k in my real-money account.

In parallel, the I’m going to stick with trading off my stock screen/macd/stochastic strategy, which holds up pretty good.  I was up about 10% in January, but lost most of my gains shortly after I peaked.  I’m now up about 2% from the beginning of the year, which is pretty lame.   Most of my losses have come from holding a good trade too long, and trying to get more out of it than it had.  On more than a couple of occassions I’ve been up between 5-15%, then had the stock drop, either suddenly, or take a long dip into negative territory, due to either industry trend change, or oftentimes I’m blindsided by an earnings event.  Both of these can be remedied by reading the news a little better.